


Unbreakable

by thepurplewombat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hermione is in trouble, Mentions of Suicide, Unbreakable Vows, i have no idea where this story is going, if it's even going anywhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 17:33:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11902695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/pseuds/thepurplewombat
Summary: Hermione Granger had a truly awful summer. Now, trapped by an Unbreakable Vow to Bellatrix Lestrange, she has been walking the line between betraying the Order and keeping herself alive against all odds.





	Unbreakable

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I'm still working on the next chapter of Bright Mirror.

Severus Snape, DADA Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was having a remarkably good night. There had been liver for dinner, floured and fried in butter like only the Hogwarts house-elves could do, followed by a slice of chocolate cake so decadent he’d had to set it aside after three glorious bites. His marking was up to date and he’d set the seventh-years a truly vicious essay just that morning, for which he’d already acquired a new bottle of bright red ink, so his weekend was sorted and, best of all, he’d just removed an entertaining number of points from three of the four houses. His Slytherins were either clever enough to stay in, or cunning enough not to get caught _not_ staying in. All in all, an excellent night – almost good enough to make him forget he was a dead man walking.

He was heading back to his office to log the detention he’d laid on McLaggen – there was snogging in the corridors and then there was what he’d been doing, and frankly, the sight of his naked arse was almost enough to bring the cake back up, when he heard soft, shuffling footsteps ahead of him in the corridor. Severus grinned to himself and cast a silencing charm on his shoes, preparing to do his absolute favourite part of the job.

When he was right behind the figure – student, from the height, although the dark cloak made it difficult to guess who it might be, and shuffling along at a remarkably slow pace with one hand on the wall – he smirked and crossed his arms, his lighted wand casting terrifying shadows on his face.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured. “What have we here?”

The student whimpered and turned around, and Severus smiled viciously.

“Miss Granger, what a _pleasant_ surprise,” he said. “Care to tell me what you’re doing out after curfew, Miss Granger? I wasn’t aware that you had rounds tonight.”

The girl pushed back the hood of her cloak and stood in front of him, her eyes not moving above his chin.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her voice rough, “I can’t tell you.”

“You…can’t…tell me,” he said musingly. “How very interesting, Miss Granger. Tell me, what gives you the idea that you have a choice in the matter?”

The girl looked up at him, and Severus found himself taking a step back with a curse. He’d seen eyes like that before, but not on anything living. Her face was tear-streaked but perfectly blank, and now that he actually _looked_ at the child, he could see that her feet were bare, scratched, and dirty, and that she was shaking with the cold. Or not with the cold, he thought, as she shuddered and grimaced, reaching out to steady herself on him.

“You’re going to need to silence me, sir,” she said as Severus reached out and put his hands under her elbows. “I’m going to start screaming any minute.”

Unnerved, Severus got his arm free to reach for his wand, but even as he started the spell, the girl writhed, only staying on her feet because he’d wrapped an arm around her waist, and _shrieked_. He’d heard sounds like that before – he’d _caused_ sounds like that before – but not – this wasn’t supposed to happen here, this was _Hogwarts_ , for Christ’s sake, and she was a _child_. Severus managed to cast a Silencio on Granger, cutting her high, piercing shriek off, and sank to his knees, supporting the girl with an arm around her shoulders, trying to keep her from hitting her head on anything and causing further damage. The cloak had fallen open and he could see, now, that underneath it she was wearing a pale pink nightdress that seemed to Severus to make the fact that she was clearly in the throes of a Crucio aftershock even worse, if that was possible.

He huddled there on the floor, cradling the girl against his body for what help the warmth might give, and wiped the tears from her face.

“Hush, Miss Granger, it will pass,” he said, making his voice as soft and soothing as he could. A moment later, he heard running footsteps and Minerva came galloping around the corner, her wand in her hand.

Minerva froze at the sight of him, and Severus could admit that it might look strange, huddled on the floor holding a student who was writhing and twisting, her hands white-knuckling on his robe.

“S-Severus?” she asked. “I heard someone screaming…”

“It’s Miss Granger, Minerva,” he said. “I’ve Silenced her lest she wake the entire school. Help me move her – I have supplies in my office but she’s moving too much for me to carry her alone.”

Even as Minerva stepped forward, Miss Granger went limp in Severus’ grasp. For a moment he feared the worst, but when he looked down he saw that she was still alive, her face twisted up with the remnants of pain, her eyes open.

“Miss Granger, do you feel that it is safe to take the silencing spell off?” he asked quietly, and sighed as she shook her head. Severus now knew two things – she’d been through Crucio aftershocks before, and she was going to seize again soon. He looked up at Minerva. “Come on, let’s get her to my office so I can take the spell off.”

With Minerva’s help, he managed to get Miss Granger to her feet, supporting them between the two of them, and they staggered crabwise to his office. Or to his classroom, anyway, because there was no way in hell that they were going to get the girl up the stairs to the DADA office.

“Get something soft on the floor and ward the room,” Severus snapped at Minerva as he took the stairs two at a time. “I’m getting the potion.”

By the time he’d slammed into his office, snatched the vial of aftercare potion from its hiding place in his desk, and made his way downstairs, Minerva had transfigured one of the desks into a mattress and gotten the girl settled. She finished warding the office silent as he came down, and they knelt on either side of the twitching student as he took the hex off her. Almost as soon as he did she began convulsing again, her high shrill screams throbbing in his ears. She clutched desperately at his hand and Minerva’s and clenched her eyes shut, screaming until her voice gave out. By his internal clock, the aftershock lasted two full minutes – the girl must have been under the curse itself for over an hour for the shocks to be so severe and _how the fuck had this happened_? When she finally went limp, he extracted his hand and picked up the potion while Minerva lifted the child’s head.

“Drink this, Miss Granger,” Severus murmured, holding the potion to her lips, and she swallowed without meeting his eyes. “The potion will help the tremors, and there will be no more aftershocks.”

She lay her head back on the mattress with a small sigh.

“Thank you, Professor,” she said. She favoured Minerva with a weak smile as the woman smoothed back her hair. “Can I go back to the Tower now?”

“Not until you’ve explained what has happened to you,” Minerva said firmly. “Miss Granger, you’ve been subjected to an Unforgiveable, and you can’t expect Professor Snape and myself to simply _ignore_ that!”

Miss Granger pushed herself into a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her knees, turning herself into a cloak-covered bundle on the transfigured mattress.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, her eyes on the spot where her toes peeked out from under the cloak.

“Miss Granger- “ Severus said, but the girl stiffened, sucking in a breath, and looked at him wide-eyed.

“I can’t _tell_ you,” she said again, but this time in a wondering tone. “I wonder…I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before, oh my God I’m so _stupid!_ Professor, I need you to read my mind.”

Severus flinched back from her, but the girl followed him, going up on her knees and grabbing at his cloak, and he froze, mesmerised by the pleading expression on her face.

“Please, Professor, _please_ ,” she said. “I can’t – I can’t tell you what’s happened, but maybe-“ She broke off, releasing him with one hand to clutch at her chest, the other still clenched in the fabric of his robe.

Severus stared at her hand on her chest, his peripheral vision taking in the faintest flare of golden light around her arm, and raised his eyes to meet hers. Behind the girl, Minerva was kneeling on the mattress, wide-eyed.

“Miss Granger,” Severus said quietly, untangling her hand from his robe and enfolding it in his own. “I think I understand. Don’t confirm it if it will endanger you. I am going to speak to Professor McGonagall for a moment. Remain here, please.”

He released the girl and pushed to his feet, motioning for Minerva to join him at the other end of the classroom.

“What’s going on, Severus?” she asked, taking his arm. “You’re not actually going to use Legilimency on the child, are you?”

He glanced at the girl and cast a Muffliato, then looked back at Minerva.

“Minerva, I don’t have a choice. Miss Granger is under a compulsion of some kind-“ no need to go into his suspicions, not when he didn’t know for sure yet – “not to speak of what has happened. She believes, and she may be correct, that she may be able to give me the information via Legilimency. However, if I am correct, depending on the terms of the…curse, she may _also_ be unable to give me the information that way. If she can’t, she may die, and if I am unable to release her mind in time, I may die as well.”

“Severus, you can’t-“

“I can and I will, Minerva,” he said flatly. “If you think that I will allow one of my students to be tortured without doing _everything in my power_ to help, then I am afraid you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do!”

“But Albus-“

“Can go straight to hell and bugger the devil while he’s there. I’m doing it, and that’s final. If this goes…badly, however. There is information you will need.” He rattled off the directions to his hiding place in the Room of Hidden Things, where he kept copies of the most vital of his memories. “Have you got that?”

Minerva nodded and squeezed his arm, and they turned back to Granger, still sitting quietly on the mattress. Severus kneeled in front of her and gently raised her chin with his fingertips until her eyes met his.

“You understand the risk if this does not work, Miss Granger?”

She nodded.

“I understand, Professor,” she said quietly. She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

And Severus fell into her mind. For a moment, he floated weightless in her thoughts, surrounded by her. In passing, he noticed her trust and admiration, even respect, for him, but then she caught herself and presented the first memory.

_The room was quite cheerful, neat and orderly and reminding him of nothing so much as the Evans’ home when he was a child. The two frozen figures on the couch looked Muggle, comfortable in their jeans and jumpers, but the terror and the pain in their faces, and the smell of fear and shit in the air, did not belong in a comfortable Muggle living room._

_Nor did the wild-haired woman in black, who laughed as she cast Crucio after Crucio at the girl on the floor. There was a Death Eater by the door as well, dark-cloaked and masked, and Severus could not identify him immediately._

_“Well, Mudblood?” Bellatrix asked. “Now you know what they’ll feel, don’t you? Do you want me to do it to them?” She cackled. “Oh, say you want to see them scream, little girl. How much of their minds do you think they’ll have left by the time I’m through?”_

_Hermione Granger lifted her tear-stained face from the floor and looked from her parents to Bellatrix, despair in her eyes._

_“And- and if I agree, you won’t kill them?” she asked quietly, with a hitch in her voice._

_“Why would I kill them, little Mudblood?” Bellatrix asked, sounding terrifyingly reasonable. “If I killed them, I’d have nothing on you, would I?”_

_Granger looked at her parents again, then closed her eyes as though in pain._

_“I’ll do it,” she whispered. “I’ll make the Vow.”_

_Bellatrix cackled madly and grabbed the girl’s hand, pulling her to her knees. A snap of her finger brought the other Death Eater, and when he moved Severus could tell that it must be Yaxley, to stand beside them._

_Bella smiled, and it was almost kind and it made Severus shudder, because it was the smile she gave her victims just before she landed the killing blow. Yaxley put the tip of his wand on their joined hands and the girl stared at it hard, as if too scared to look into Bellatrix’s eyes, as though mesmerised._

_“Pay attention, Mudblood!” Bella snapped, slapping the girl across the face, and Granger looked up at her again._

_“Madam Lestrange,” she said softly, “what will the terms of my Vow be?”_

_“I want you to spy on Potter and pledge your loyalty to the Dark Lord, Mudblood, and report back to me when you have information, and you are not to speak of this to anyone!” Bellatrix said, frowning._

_The girl looked thoughtful, and then she bit her lip and nodded._

_“May I make a suggestion?” she offered. “If…if I am to do this, it wouldn’t help if I – if I died because I’d gotten something wrong without meaning to.”_

_Severus watched as Bellatrix looked at the girl in surprise. Severus himself was not surprised. He could see the wheels turning behind Granger’s dark eyes, looking for a way out, or even just a way to lessen the damage she could be compelled to do. The best thing, of course, would have been to allow Bellatrix to kill her, but that would cost her parents their lives and, immersed in Granger’s mind as he was, he could see that that was not an option for her. He could also see that, whether the girl was consciously doing it or not, she was hiding her pain and panic behind an Occlumency shield like nothing he’d ever seen before._

_“Go ahead,” Bellatrix said flatly, and the girl took a deep breath._

_“If I were to vow loyalty to the Dark Lord, I’d die, because you can’t…you can’t compel that. But you could make me vow to faithfully and honestly report any relevant information to you, which would be almost the same thing, wouldn’t it? And you wouldn’t like to hear all the silly gossip and so on, which is why we’re saying ‘relevant’ information instead of ‘everything you know about Harry Potter’ or something similar. And you could have a way to summon me to report to you – I’d suggest working in something like ‘come to me as soon as possible when I summon you’ because it wouldn’t help if I were to die because I was, for example, in class when you summoned me. As for speaking of this to anyone…I don’t mean to criticise, Madam Lestrange, but that’s not very practical. You’re a busy woman, after all, and may not always find time to meet with me. Might I suggest something like a code word, which would allow you to deputise someone to debrief me?”_

_Bellatrix released the girl’s hand and started pacing._

_“Yes, I see what you mean, Mudblood,” she said. “You’re just full of ideas, aren’t you? Let’s see what you think about this, then? Your vow will be to come to me as soon as possible when I summon you, inform me of all relevant information when I ask you to, and speak of this matter to nobody who has not given you the code phrase. You will also, little Mudblood, obey any orders given to you by me, or by anyone who has given you the code phrase.”_

_Granger nodded, and Bellatrix snatched up her hand again._

_“Ready, Yaxley?” she asked, and the man nodded. Bella grinned, almost charmingly, at the girl. “Do you, Hermione Granger, vow to come to me as soon as possible when I summon you?”_

_“I do,” the girl said quietly._

_“And do you vow to inform me of any information you learn that may be relevant to the Dark Lord and his fight against the Order, Dumbledore, and Harry Potter?”_

_“I do.”_

_“And do you vow to speak of this to nobody who has not spoken the password to you?”_

_“I-“ The girl choked and the streamer flared a bright, hot orange. “I think you need to tell me the password before I can vow to that, Madam Lestrange.”_

_“The password will be ‘For the glory of the Dark Lord,” Bella snapped. “Do you vow to speak of this matter to nobody who has not spoken these words to you?”_

_“I do.”_

_“And do you vow to obey the commands of myself, or anyone who has given you the password?”_

_“I do,” the girl said, and the chains of the Vow flared bright and disappeared, and Bella let out a long, mad cackle as the memory shimmered and changed._

_Next, Severus was standing in the Shrieking Shack with Bellatrix as the girl entered, looking around cautiously._

_“You’re late, Mudblood,” Bella snapped._

_“I apologise, Madam Lestrange,” the girl said softly. “I came as soon as I received your note.”_

_Bella grunted and commanded the girl to report, and Granger spilled out every secret she was privy to. It wasn’t much; the Dark Lord already knew that Potter and Dumbledore were having secret lessons, but he could see Granger wince as she admitted that the boy fancied Ginny Weasley. Bella laughed for a long time over that, but then her mood turned sour and she spent some time making the child writhe on the floor for her delayed arrival._

_“This tardiness is unacceptable, Mudblood! I must be able to make you aware of my summons instantly!”_

_Granger lifted herself off the floor, still gasping._

_“Enchanted Galleons could work,” she said. “You could make it heat up when you want me to meet you?”_

_“Hmmm,” Bella said, and then laughed. “No, I think I have a better idea.” She pointed her wand at one of her rings and muttered something. “Hold out your arm, Mudblood!”_

_The girl obeyed, but as Bella brought her wand nearer to the pale flesh of her forearm arm, she flinched._

_“Are you sure that’s wise, Madam Lestrange?” she asked quietly. “I live in a dorm room, someone is going to see it!”_

_Bella snarled and kicked the girl over._

_“Fine, then! Skirt up, knickers down, Mudblood! I’m going to mark you like the cow you are, understood?”_

_Granger wept quietly as she lifted her skirt and bared one pale, smooth buttock to Bella’s wand, but she screamed as she had under crucio when Bella touched the wand to her flesh, branding the crest of the House of Black into her skin. Severus flinched in sympathy. The day he’d taken the Mark lived on as one of the most painful events in a life not lacking in painful events, and he’d been a man grown at the time, not a girl of seventeen at the tail-end of half an hour of Crucio._

_“When the mark burns, you will come to me as soon as possible,” Bellatrix said. A moment later she stepped over the girl’s body and swept out of the Shack, leaving Granger crying quietly into the floor behind her._

**_I’ve seen enough, Miss Granger,_ ** _Severus thought at her. **I understand now**_ **.**

He tried to withdraw from the girl’s mind but she yanked him into another memory before he could do so.

_Again, the girl stood in the upper room of the Shrieking Shack, waiting quietly, her cloak thrown on over a light pink nightgown. She was pale and nervous, but turned milk-white when the door slammed closed behind Dolohov. The tall Death Eater grinned at her._

_“Well, well, well,” he said, stepping close and tilting her chin up with a fingertip. “Bella said she had a surprise for me, but I had no idea it was you, little Mudblood.”_

_Granger said nothing, staring up at the man who had once sliced her open from throat to navel._

_“Go on then, Mudblood. Tell me what you’ve found out,” Dolohov said, petting her hair._

_The girl’s eyes closed and she recited the information she had – Harry was still meeting with Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy was up to something and Professor Snape was trying to get him to confide in him…_

_Dolohov laughed._

_“Oh he is, is he? How very interesting. Keep an eye on Snape when you get back to the castle, little girl. Bella doesn’t trust him and nor do I, despite his whining about spying on Dumbledore. See if you can discover his true loyalties.”_

_“Y-yes, sir,” Granger murmured. “May I go, sir?”_

_Dolohov laughed and fisted his hand in her tangled hair._

_“Not yet, I think. On your knees, Mudblood,” he snapped-_

And Miss Granger ejected Severus from her mind, leaving him kneeling across from her on a Transfigured mattress in his classroom, wide-eyed and nauseous. The girl had closed her eyes and had an almost blissful expression on her face as she breathed out long and slow. As she did so, she seemed to fold in on herself, until she had hidden her face against Severus’ knee, murmuring _oh thank God, thank God it worked_ over and over again.

Severus met Minerva’s eyes over the girl’s bowed back, and his expression must have given him away because she mimed stroking something in her lap, and nodded in approval when he rested a hand on the girl’s surprisingly soft hair.

“Miss Granger,” Severus said finally, and he desperately didn’t want to be asking this question but – “Do you need a contraceptive potion?” Minerva went wide-eyed, pale and horrified as he’d ever seen her.

Granger shook her head without looking up, and muttered something into the wool covering his leg.

“Not at the moment, sir. He – “she broke off with a pained moan. “You know what you need to say, say it!” she hissed.

“For the glory of the Dark Lord,” Severus said quietly, and Granger relaxed. “You, too, Minerva. It’s a…password, of sorts.” His colleague obeyed, looking as though the words left a foul taste in her mouth, and Granger sighed again.

“Thank you, Professor. You have no idea…I couldn’t tell anyone, I couldn’t even _think_ about telling anyone and the pain…and now they’ve set me on you!”

“If at all possible, I would like to have the situation explained to me,” Minerva said with a touch of her usual asperity, and Granger huffed a laugh and sat back up. Minerva joined them in sitting on the mattress, and for a moment Severus wondered at the picture they made, two professors and a student, sitting on the floor of a classroom in the middle of the night. Possibly it was the strangest sleepover in the world.

Severus gave Minerva a summary of the events as he understood them, and watched his favourite colleague grow more and more pinched as he spoke.

“My God,” she breathed. There didn’t seem to be much else to say after that.

After a long silence, Severus stirred himself.

“Miss Granger, I need to know what you’ve told Bellatrix,” he said. The girl nodded without protest, and took a deep breath.

“She knows that Harry fancies Ginny. She knows that Harry has been meeting with the Headmaster, but fortunately she hasn’t asked me about that since I found out about the Horcruxes, so she doesn’t know we know about that. She knows that Harry suspects you’re helping Draco and she told me about your Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa. She knows quite a bit about what’s going on here at school, but I’ve been avoiding talking about Order things with everybody incase I learned something I’d have to tell her,” Granger said, speaking quickly. “I’ve managed not to reveal you, sir, but I’ve come closer than I like and with this…sir, if Dolohov had asked me directly instead of just telling me to discover your true loyalties, I wouldn’t have been able to keep it quiet. Next time Madam Lestrange asks…”

“Yes, I can see the problem,” Severus murmured.

“If I tell her, you’re fucked, and if I don’t tell her, she’ll know there’s something I didn’t tell her.”

“How were you planning to avoid giving her sensitive information?” Minerva asked.

To Severus’ surprise, the girl spat something into her hand, holding it out to them proudly. Severus looked at the small capsule.

“Basilisk venom,” Granger said. “It’s fast enough that she won’t have time to ask me anything.”

“Excruciatingly painful as well,” Severus said, working to keep his voice bland. Good God, the girl had been walking around with _basilisk venom_ in her mouth!

“All to the good, right?” Granger said, staring at her exit strategy. “I didn’t have access to anything instantaneous, but from what I’m told, nobody stays coherent for more than a minute after exposure.”

Minerva reached out and snatched the capsule from Granger’s hand (had she had it fixed in place somehow to avoid accidentally biting down on it?)

“There will be none of that, Miss Granger!” she snapped firmly, but the girl just sighed sadly.

“Professor McGonagall, I’m sorry, but you can’t stop me. I’ve got more where that came from and I can make more pods. But anyway, that’s useless now, because if I’m summoned again I’m going to give Professor Snape away one way or the other.”

“You know that the Dark Lord is aware of my entire situation, don’t you, Miss Granger?” Severus asked quietly. “I don’t think you have too much to fear – you’re not likely to know anything that’s news to him, and my position is safe.”

“You’d be surprised, sir,” she said, leaning back with her eyes closed. “You and the Headmaster had a…conversation in the Forest, sir. About a week ago. You were arguing that you could let the curse take its course, he was insisting that you have to kill him-“

She broke off as Minerva shot to her feet.

“ _What_?”

Granger looked between the two of them, wide-eyed and startled.

“You mean she doesn’t _know_? Does _anyone_ know what the Headmaster has asked you to do, sir?”

Severus shook his head, struck mute. God damn it all. They’d been careless, and now he was fucked. He closed his eyes and tuned out Minerva’s rant. He was completely and utterly buggered. The next time the girl went to Bellatrix, he was going to be dead.

He jerked as a hand touched his, and found that Granger had leaned over and was watching him with concern.

“You don’t have to worry, sir, I’ll take care of it. I just have a few more things to take care of, and then you’ll be safe.”

“Take care of it?” Severus asked blankly. “What do you mean, take care of it, Granger?”

Her smile was desolate.

“Well, I’ve written a letter to Harry and Ron saying that I’m too scared to stay here, that I’ve run away to the Muggle world. My parents are just waiting for word, they’ve got their exit strategy prepared – I think they’re going somewhere in Africa but obviously they couldn’t tell me. And then…I’m just going to disappear.”

“You’re going to run?” Severus asked, intensely aware that Minerva was staring at them both. “That won’t work, Granger, the Vow-“

“I’m not going to go far, sir,” she said mildly. “Just far enough into the forest for the Acromantulas to find me.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a shower idea. Truthfully I have no idea whether the story is going anywhere, or whether I'm going to continue with it. I have some ideas - Minerva and Severus lock her up so that she can't respond to Bellatrix is one, an actual dramatic death scene is another...but I'm not sure where this story wants to go.
> 
> If it does go somewhere, there may eventually be a house-elf named Yorick.


End file.
